Outdoors: Hawks a spectacle in September

Mid-September is hawk-watching time, the most thrilling wild phenomenon of the year for thousands of raptor observers. Raptor means robber, and these birds of prey which plunder and pillage from the sky now steal hearts and imaginations, too, as they fly south in a dramatic display rivaling the world’s greatest migrations.

Black, eagle-sized turkey vultures are soaring like drunken pilots, unstably rocking in the wind from side to side with wings held up in a shallow V. Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks — trailing long, thin, banded tails — are racing in straight lines with a distinctive rhythm of flap, flap, glide… flap, flap, glide.

Red-tailed hawks with their distinctive dark belly bands and fan-shaped tails are ascending in big spirals, unless they’re refueling by still-hunting from a tree branch, telephone pole or other vantage point. Northern harriers, ospreys, red-shouldered hawks, peregrines, merlins, kestrels and bald eagles are sure to follow. But those sightings are all numerically dwarfed by the enormous broad-winged hawk migration of nearly 2 million birds that usually occurs in our region this coming week. The skies now become our Serengeti, New England’s version of the great wildebeest migration.

Ninety percent of their population, mostly from Canada, migrates simultaneously in a matter of a few concentrated days, usually following a triggering, first major cold front up north. Hundreds of thousands of them, on cue, leave their dense, conifer-studded breeding range, all heading south en masse, funneling through Texas, Mexico and Panama, finally arriving in South America. Very old broad-wings have made the great journey a dozen times.

Their black-banded, fanned tails stand out distinctively to trained observers. Joining a skilled hawk-watching group can greatly help you find and identify them, and even differentiate bar-breasted adults from stripe-breasted juveniles.

The Forbush, Athol, Cape Cod and Brookline bird clubs all offer local opportunities to marvel at the massive movement at strategic viewpoints like Mount Wachusett, Mount Watatic, Barre Falls and Mount Tom from now through early November. Experts like Paul Roberts will be there just about every sunny day now, recording numbers and identifying species you’d never see on your own.

You’ll want good binoculars and maybe even a spotting scope and tripod. Some raptors will be an amazing mile or more away when first sighted and identified. A few might dip down close to refuel on a chipmunk, snake, vole or frog, but most will be seen soaring very high.

Raptors won’t migrate in the rain, so pick a sunny morning. Be at your observation site from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Unlike early-moving songbirds, migrating raptors wait on their perches for warming thermals of rising air to give them an effortless lift to soar and glide great distances with little energy expenditure. They can easily travel a couple hundred miles a day with the wind behind their backs.

You’ll likely see “kettles” of hawks forming tornado-like patterns composed of many individuals, vertically spiraling ever higher until — when just about out of sight — they can advantageously peel off and glide farther south without need of flapping.

Although great flights occur on north or northwest winds, several record flights have surprisingly occurred locally on northeast winds. East winds, though, are abominable, blowing birds far inland from us. Southerly winds are also undesirable as hawks don’t want to migrate long distances against the wind.

Experiencing one’s first raptor migration can prove life-altering. One breathtaking morning with them atop Mount Wachusett many years back inspired me to study birds around the world and make pilgrimages to other observation sites like Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania, where much of the tradition began. The mountain was transformed from a great place to shoot hawks to a great place to marvel at them, all within the last century. Not long ago, Hawk Mountain recorded its millionth raptor sighting.

If you want to be astounded by more hawks than you could ever count, you can visit Veracruz, Mexico, where more than a million hawks are observed every year. They funnel down a narrow corridor between the thermal-deficient Gulf of Mexico, which they don’t want to fly over, and a high mountain range, just a few miles to the west. During the last week of September, you can see a hundred thousand raptors in a day there, and in a week, more hawks than most veteran hawk watchers will see in their lifetime. A hotel rooftop is currently the best observation point.

But you don’t need to see a million hawks to be awestruck by the hawk migration. Worcester County can afford all the excitement you can handle — on rare occasions, sometimes 10,000 to 20,000 hawks in a single day. But you’ve got to go now.

To begin hawk watching and get enraptured by the spectacle, call raptor authority Barton Kamp of Worcester’s Forbush Bird Club at (508) 753-7463. Their members will be delighted to take you under their wing.

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